Sony Pictures seems ready to take a page from Marvel Studios’ playbook by expanding their own Universe of Marvel Characters beyond the big screen and into the realm of television as they convert their Silver & Black project into a TV series.
Set to star Silver Sablinova, AKA Silver Sable, and Felicia Hardy, AKA the Black Cat, the project has seen its way through several incarnations. Initially pitched as a dark buddy story in the tradition of Thelma & Louise, the film was scheduled to be directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood with a story written by herself, Lisa Joy, Chris Yost, Lindsey Beer, and Geneva Robertson-Dworet (the last of whom had a hand in the 2019 Marvel Cinematic Universe film Captain Marvel).
The pic was meant to be explicitly set in the same world as Spider-Man: Homecoming, which Sony producer Amy Pascal once ambiguously described as “adjunct” to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and entered preproduction in 2017. It stalled there, however, as Prince-Bythewood continued rewriting the script before eventually leaving the project to direct the pilot episode of the Freeform series Cloak & Dagger before moving on to an adaptation of Greg Rucka and Leandor Fernandez’s Image comic The Old Guard.
Sony subsequently cancelled the film in August of 2018, with Variety reporting that the studio was opting instead to develop two separate projects centering on each of the characters individually. The first of that pair was rumored to focus on Hardy according to Columbia Pictures president Sanford Panitch, who said that “Black Cat is enough of her own character…to justify her own film.”
This week, however, FandomWire reported that the project has transformed again, with the characters being brought back together once more into the long-form medium of television. Little else is known about this latest iteration, but it seems likely that the potential series will wind up being produced by Sony Pictures Television, the production house behind AMC’s Breaking Bad, fX’s The Shield, and Sci-Fi’s Stargate SG-1.
The mercenary Silver Sablinova, who first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #265 in June of 1985, has served as both ally and occasional antagonist to Spider-Man, while Felicia Hardy, who first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #194 in July of 1979 and later made her big-screen debut, played by Felicity Jones, in the 2014 film The Amazing Spider-Man 2, has shared a long, complicated, emotionally-turbulent relationship with the Wall-Crawler.
Casting has yet to begin on the project, and no names have been mentioned in connection with either of the principle roles. Of course, the best laid plans can and do change in the film industry from one moment to the next, but we’ll keep you updated on this newest version of Silver & Black as that information becomes available.
Meanwhile, Sony continues to spin the web of its Universe of Marvel Characters this year with the release of Morbius on July 31st and Venom 2 on October 2nd, before the recently-outed Peter Parker returns in his third solo adventure on July 16th, 2021.
